• after a single dose of streptozocin, control animals become hyperglycemic (>400mg/dl) after 2 days, while transgenic animals do not acquire a similar degree of diabetes during the 6 days of observation

• cultured transgenic islets are relatively protected from damage by streptozocin compared to control islets; control islets are visibly damaged by 0.25 mmol/l and disintegrate into single cells by 0.5 mmol/l streptozocin but transgenic islets don't exhibit a similar level of damage until exposure to a dose of 1 mmol/l

• transgenic islets have an increased threshold for DNA damage by streptozocin compared to control FVB islets

• transgenic islets transferred into streptozocin-induced diabetic BALB/c mice are able to maintain almost normal blood glucose levels for over 16 days in recipients, while control islets could maintain euglycemia for just over 8 days

• islets are resistant to morphological damage and cell death induced by incubation with SNAP, a nitric oxide donor; FVB control islets are damaged under the same conditions

• after transplantation of transgenic islet or control iset grafts into FVB recipients, after 6 days transgenic islets retain 60% of their original insulin content while control islets only retain less than 20% ot their initial insulin